Letters to the Editor

Perhaps the Town Council could invite young people from within the different communities of Keighley to form a discussion group where new insights might encourage understanding and integration.

It is time that the good and honest people of Keighley found solutions rather than moving away, and then Keighley can be a great place to live, work and go to school in.

ANDREA FOSTER

Highfield Farm Cottage, Oakworth

SIR - Our company refurbished the buildings at Hillworth Lodge, which were originally known as The Workhouse and The County Poor Law Institution, on Oakworth Road in Keighley.

Many of our tenants and visitors ask about the history of our site and we would be grateful if anyone with information about the Workhouse and Institution could contact us.

Sue Robinson

Housing Manager

MB Housing Ltd

1 Hillworth House,

Hillworth Village,

Oakworth, Keighley

SIR - The story of the closure of a ward for older people at Airedale General Hospital left me somewhat bemused. The plans of the Trust and Bradford Social Services to deal with the problem were I think a little optimistic.

A spokesperson is quoted as saying that those who need nursing home care would be placed in nursing homes.

We would love to help, if only it were that simple. In the last two years over 200 nursing home beds have been closed in the area covered by the Airedale PCT alone, with more lost in North Yorkshire and surrounding districts.

Residential homes, too, who cater for frail but less ill people, continue to close, with another lost to us in Keighley just this month. Any social worker could tell you that there just are not the vacancies out there. This is going to be a bigger headache than many people realise (or will publicly admit).

The result is that people who could reasonably be discharged from hospital remain there at a cost of over £1,500 per week. And what does Bradford Social Services offer us for looking after these frail, ill people who need permanent nursing care -- feeding, toileting, dressing, lifting, and complex medical care for the rest of their lives? £2.53 an hour is what we are offered.

The loss of beds has been due to the actions of government, both local and national. National Government has set minimum standards which we must all achieve. Fine, but we need the money to be able to do it. For many home owners it has simply not been affordable on the fees paid by local authorities, so their only alternative is to close. Local government (not just Bradford either) continues to under-fund care of older people by spending the money given by central government for this purpose on other things.

This results in patients being sent sometimes miles away, to where there are empty beds, without the choice that the NHS and Community Care Act says is everyone's right -- the right to choose where you will live. We have, like other homes, been contacted by families of unhappy residents who have been sent to care homes far away and wish to come back to Keighley where their families and friends are.

A few years ago local homes were pleading with Bradford Social Services for enough payment to continue operating our services. The former Director of Social Services said publicly that he did not consider this an issue, because there were plenty of empty beds. This winter will prove him right or wrong.

Andrew Makin

Director of Nursing

Registered Nursing Home

Association

Norwood House Nursing

Home

Greenthwaite Close,

Keighley

SIR - I would like to express my views in the light of the recent article on Ann Cryer. At last -- someone who is willing to grasp the nettle of truth -- both about the fascism of the BNP and the problems in the Asian community.

I would like to challenge the Keighley News in doing the same.

I feel weary and frustrated at the amount of bad publicity given to Greenhead High School. My son has attended Greenhead for a year and has experienced a very positive learning experience, both academically and socially -- making lots of Asian friends. The atmosphere in the school is wonderful and the teaching staff caring and committed. Greenhead is a vastly under-rated school, which is vastly misrepresented.

Every school in this area has its share of problems but it appears that Greenhead is the only school 'bad?' enough to make news.

Please Keighley News, take a leaf out of Ann Cryer's book -- in this fragile time of possible racial division, become a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

D A JEFFREY

High Spring Road,

Thwaites Brow

SIR - Having read in the national press today that OFSTED criticise too many schools for not taking young people to outdoor activities for fear of being sued, I would like to sing the praises of our local voluntary youth movements.

As a member of the Scout Association, which has had the occasional publicised problems, it gives me great pride to know that through our strict training and authorisation systems we are continuing to increase the number of outdoor opportunities -- and especially those which allow young people to spend supervised overnight camps.

It is unfortunate and understandable that employed staff in the education system are reluctant to undertake "risky" activities for fear of reprisal and their jobs -- but Scouters who receive no income do so on a regular basis and with few problems.

My message to all parents who would welcome the chances for their children to take part in additional activities in our beautiful countryside -- contact your local youth group.

The Scouts can be contacted on 07774 400404 or through www.keighleyscouts.org.uk

Mark Pullen

District Media Manager

Keighley District Scouts

Thorn Street, Haworth

SIR - I would personally like to thank our MP for Keighley, and the government she represents, for the splendid work carried out since they came to power.

In seven years of control we have seen a hundred-plus tax increases, our middle schools closed to save money, house prices rise beyond our future children's grasp, and manufacturing still disappearing abroad.

I then read last Friday's Keighley News to find that a 30 bed ward for the elderly is to close, despite a rise in the admissions in this area, what a total disgrace.

Does Mrs Cryer not realise that it was our elderly who played a major part in building this country into a market leader in the world today, one of which we should all be proud?

Then in the government's short period of office they have managed to undo all this, and top it off with kicking our elderly in the teeth.

I don't admit to being a rocket scientist, but if the government stopped wasting unnecessary tax payers' money on the Iraq war and the bogus asylum flood, the points mentioned would not have happened.

Thank you Mrs Cryer, and I eagerly look forward to voting in next year's general election.

M CONDREN

Guardhouse Drive, Keighley.

SIR - On one occasion in the past -- having single-handedly delivered 3,000 Labour election leaflets in the Worth Valley while pregnant -- I could have sympathised with Trevor Lindley's call for ex-Party members to "do something".

However, as an ex-Party member (having left pre-Blair - Kinnockio was more than bad enough), I must take issue with his clarion call for good "men" to come to the aid of the Party. It was easy to overlook the pettiness of some members who would, for example, regale me with late night calls questioning my bloodline; I was born in Yorkshire of -- shock, horror -- Polish parents who spoke their first language at home (which is why I got 96 per cent in my first English exam at school, speaking two languages well being better than speaking nothing but learner English badly -- a principle India's white colonists, amongst others, failed to grasp). Even worse, my mother had fought in the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis, which automatically made me a fascist.

However, this racism and the Party's institutional sexism were mere annoyances compared with the simple fact that those 3,000 leaflets, and many more thousands delivered by me at other times, had not the slightest impact on preventing this nation from falling into the hands of a demented, hallucinating egomaniac who has stolen Labour's past and our children's future by engaging in an illegal war whose intrinsic racism and elitism make the BNP look like a Unicef conference.

Mr Lindley, there were over a million 'good men' and women 'doing something' in the streets of London last February - that did not stop Private Gentle's nineteen-year-old (working class) body being prematurely shattered, nor Tony Blair from trotting out his Sandhurst-trained Same Old Liars to tell Maxine Gentle she should be proud her brother died. It did not stop seven-year-old Sarah, nor her six year old brother Karrad, having their heads blown off in Baghdad. It did not stop the obscenity of Blair's trophy judgelet wife trilling about little Leo riding his trike through Number Ten while Iraqi kids were being dismembered in Fallujah.

The BNP is not the enemy; in civilised parts of the country where immigrants are allowed to be more than taxi-drivers and pizza bearers, where incomers are not routinely portrayed as child-abusing dysphasics, where house prices rocket in all local areas despite a large ethnic population, the BNP has made few inroads.

The real enemy is sitting in Downing Street, using this country's taxes to implement American foreign policy and create world-wide schism. Does Mr Lindley really believe attending Worth Valley Labour meetings is going to stop that particular evil?

JANINE LEITCH

Carlton Street, Haworth

SIR - "They stick together, they use their own businesses, they have their own community spokesmen . . . " and so the patronising list goes on.

Well, Cllr Kirby, as far as I know this is all perfectly legal.

And you can do the same. What you mustn't do is to form a political party that attempts to enshrine such separatist behaviour in law and enforce it. To do so would be to discriminate between different groups on the grounds of race. Currently that's not legal.

You would presumably repeal the current anti-discrimination laws before embarking on some doomed and stupid experiment in apartheid.

By the way, if you vote BNP and you're not a racist then your understanding of the situation is so feeble . . . you must be thick.

George Speller

Hill Top Road, Keighley

SIR - I am very pleased to see that your letters column is now allowing views that you have for so long neglected. You must feel pretty relieved.

But I do not believe that you have done this by choice, no I think this is due to the overwhelming amount of pressure put on you by the people of Keighley. If only you had listened to them a long time ago.

I was originally writing a letter to ask you to resign for your poor conduct, but the September 24 issue has hopefully made you see common sense and give the electorate equal rights, which are long overdue. Maybe now serious issues in this town will rise to the surface and be swiftly dealt with, and hopefully Keighley will once again become a safe, pleasant place in which we can all live.

MISS S RILEY

Birchwood Road, Utley.

SIR - I welcome the news that the speed warning signs in East Morton are to be made operational.

As a resident of the village, I am aware how the central road hatching has already led to a reduction in the speed of traffic through the village as most drivers try to remain within their designated area.

Unfortunately there are still an inconsiderate few who regard the hatching area as available for them to use. Perhaps they are simply incapable of steering accurately. The use of speed warning signs can only help to reinforce the message that East Morton is a residential village, with many children and elderly residents.

Mark Startin

Stockshill Close

East Morton

Sir - Through the pages of your newspaper we would like to thank all the people who so kindly supported the collections we did recently in both Keighley and Skipton.

Over a period of two - three weeks we collected for our Annual Appeal over £1,300, which is wonderful and we are so thankful for all the support shown. Every pound donated to the Annual Appeal is spent on Salvation Army social work. Donations from this appeal do not go towards general administration.

The Salvation Army

Church and

Community Centre,

Keighley

SIR - Regarding your article KN last week, 'Labour MP's comments used by right wing group in call for Marriage Policy review'.

Migration Watch is not a right wing pressure group. It has no political links and receives no funding from any political party. It merely seeks to tell the truth about immigration in this country. I suggest your reporter visits the Migration Watch website. I think they will find that the organisation is not right wing or racist in any way.

N J SISLEY

Changegate, Haworth